CENSUS 2000 / Who We Are / S.F. Grew By 7.3% Since '90 Census / Asian influx accounts for most of change

Anastasia Hendrix, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, March 31, 2001

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CENSUS 2000 / Who We Are / S.F. Grew By 7.3% Since '90 Census / Asian influx accounts for most of change

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Harvey Matthews has watched more than a dozen new faces and families move onto his block in the Bayview over the past 10 years. One has a star of David hanging in the window, but most of the others regularly carry home bags of Asian vegetables and baked goods from nearby markets.

It's become a familiar scene in many San Francisco neighborhoods, largely because of an influx of Asian immigrants, reflected in newly released Census 2000 statistics.

The city's overall population grew to 776,733 -- a 7.3 percent increase since the 1990 census. The biggest increase was among the 259,750 people who identified themselves as Asians or Pacific Islanders, compared with 210,876 a decade earlier.

There was also a slight increase among non-Hispanic whites, or those who classified themselves as "non-Hispanic whites" -- a direct contrast to a statewide decline. In all, 356,374 people in 2000 said they were all or partially white, compared with the 337,118 tallied last time.

In contrast, the city's African American population waned in the past decade. Even as the state's overall figure remained steady, black residents in San Francisco decreased from 79,039 in 1990 to 60,515 last year. An additional 6,561 reported some black heritage combined with another race.

"What is remarkable is that these changes have not brought significant dramatic tensions," he said. "There's a quality of generosity and acceptance in many neighborhoods that I think San Francisco can be proud of."

Matthews, an 80-year-old retired warehouse foreman, said that is definitely the case on Bridge View Drive. He's especially grateful, he said, for the dozens of Asian restaurants, bakeries and fruit stands that have opened within blocks of his longtime Bayview home.

"I never used to eat Chinese food that much, but now I go all the time," he said chuckling. "It's like Chinatown down there on San Bruno Avenue."

Once almost exclusively African American, the area has become a haven for multiethnic working families who moved in, even as those who couldn't afford to stay moved out.

Hundreds of black families relocated to such Bay Area suburbs as Richmond, Vallejo and Fairfield after housing projects were torn down, said Naomi Gray of the Urban Institute for African American Affairs Inc. in San Francisco. The decline in the black population was more dramatic than expected, she said, but hardly a surprise. For Gray, an early indicator was the mailing list of the Black Leadership Forum, a political group that used to send out 40,000 endorsement flyers to registered African American voters in the city during elections. Today, she said, the list has shrunk to about 30,000.

San Francisco's Hispanic population, however, reflected increases seen across the state and country.

The number of Hispanics jumped by 8,787 -- or 8.7 percent -- to 109,504. An additional 33,255 checked the multiracial box, the first time the census allowed such a distinction. Additionally, 50,368 people in the city specified they were "another" race, aside from white, black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian or Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander.

San Francisco historian Gladys Hansen said the strong economy has shaped local demographics, drawing workers from around the globe to the high-tech sector.

"With more and more business going into the areas like South of Market, you have to wonder where did that population go? Basically, that's where the poor were, and now they're the rich there," said Hansen, curator of the Museum of the City of San Francisco. "As more and more money comes into the city and people sell their property, things change. That's always the way it is."

The dynamic began shifting in the early 1990s, when changes in immigration laws made it easier for people to work for well-funded startup companies, said David Lee, director of the city's Chinese American Voters Education Committee.

Although earlier Asian immigrants predominantly had come from southern and southeastern China, he said, the majority of recent immigrants arrived from central China and other Mandarin-speaking provinces.

"When we're registering voters, 10 years ago, we very rarely ran into Mandarin (speakers)," Lee said. "Now, it's one of the fastest-growing dialects in San Francisco."

Many of those Asian families were able to buy homes in the Sunset District and other areas while property was relatively affordable.

"Neighborhoods like the Sunset have become much more Asian, having really matured from 10 years ago, when it was first recorded that Asian settlement was just beginning," said Lee.

City Administrator Bill Lee (no relation), whose office worked closely with the federal government as it conducted the census, said he was surprised the overall population increase was not quite as high as projected figures, based on estimates by community groups and organizations involved in the tally.

"I think the issue is how many people were undercounted," he said. "We're concerned because we do have a high rate of immigrants and homelessness. It's my belief that we have more homeless in San Francisco than the other eight or nine Bay Area counties combined."

Lee said he considers the 2000 Census much more accurate than the 1990 survey but said "we could still have 8,000 to 10,000 people that were not counted and that adds up to millions of dollars (in federal tax allocations) a year."

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